A feasibility study and a pro forma answer different questions. The pro forma tests whether a specific deal, at specific numbers, produces an acceptable return. A feasibility study comes earlier and asks a blunter question: is there enough here — enough market, enough buildable capacity, enough available labour and cost stability — to justify spending real money finding out.
Key takeaways
A feasibility study exists to answer one question before a project team spends real money on detailed design: is this worth pursuing at all. That question breaks down into four separate input categories, and a study that only covers one or two of them — usually market and cost, with regulatory and financing treated as afterthoughts — is answering a narrower and less reliable question than the one it's presented as answering.
The market side of a feasibility study needs current activity data, not a figure carried forward from the last study the team happened to have on file. Statistics Canada's building permits release for June 2026 reported the national total rebounding 18.5% to $14.9 billion, after declines in both April and May — a swing large enough that a feasibility study built on a snapshot from even a few months earlier could already be describing a market that's moved on. The practical rule is to date every market input explicitly in the study itself, rather than presenting it as a stable fact, so a reader six months later can judge how much has likely changed rather than assuming the number is still current.
A feasibility study's cost assumptions are only as good as its labour-availability assumptions, because labour scarcity is one of the more reliable drivers of cost escalation in a tight market. Canada's construction sector currently employs more than 1.6 million people, and the industry's own labour-market forecasting has been flagging sustained hiring pressure and workforce renewal challenges as retirements continue — a real, structural input to a feasibility study's cost and schedule assumptions rather than background colour. A study that models hard costs as a flat percentage above the last comparable project, without separately considering whether the labour market for the specific trades this project needs is tight or loose in the relevant region, is missing one of the more predictive inputs available.
Technical feasibility — can the intended building actually be built on this site, to this program, under the applicable code — runs on the National Building Code, which sets out technical requirements for the design and construction of new buildings as a model code. It is not, on its own, a statement of what applies in a given province or municipality: the code's own guidance is to confirm the applicable edition and any local amendments with the municipal, provincial or territorial official, because adoption timing and local variations are exactly that — local. A feasibility study that cites the National Building Code as though it settles a jurisdiction-specific question, rather than as the starting framework a local official then applies, has treated a model code as though it were the applicable law.
The financing side of a feasibility study — what the project can actually borrow against, and at what structure — is close enough to a full sensitivity exercise that it belongs on its own, and testing how those inputs move the return is a distinct step that comes after the feasibility study establishes the project is worth modelling in the first place. Site-specific inputs — title, zoning capacity, environmental history — are also their own track with their own timeline, and a feasibility study's site assumptions are only as good as the due diligence behind them. A feasibility study is the point where all four categories are first assembled together; it is not the point where any one of them gets its final, fully verified answer.
It's tempting to run these four categories one after another — confirm the market looks promising, then price the cost, then check the code, then look at financing last — because that mirrors how a project team is often staffed, with different people or firms owning each piece. That sequencing hides interactions a combined read catches. A site that's technically feasible under the National Building Code but only at a lower storey count than the market analysis assumed doesn't fail on any one input in isolation — it fails at the intersection of the technical and market categories, and a study that scores each category separately, without an explicit step that cross-checks them against each other, can present four individually reasonable answers that don't actually agree on the same buildable project.
The practical fix is a single summary table that states, against the same building program, what each category actually supports: the unit count and mix the market data justifies, the storey count and footprint the technical inputs allow, the cost per square foot the labour and materials data suggests is realistic, and the leverage the financing inputs indicate is available. Where two rows disagree — the market wants more density than the technical inputs support, say — that disagreement is the actual finding of the feasibility study, and it's exactly the kind of finding a category-by-category report, read separately, tends to bury.
The output of a feasibility study is a go/no-go recommendation, not a financing package — and a recommendation built on four dated, sourced input categories survives a second reader's questions in a way that one built on a single market snapshot and an assumed cost escalator does not.
A feasibility study asks whether a project should be pursued at all, using market, cost, regulatory and financing inputs at a relatively high level. A pro forma comes after, and tests a specific deal's numbers in detail, typically with sensitivity testing applied to the variables that move the return most.
As current as practical, and explicitly dated in the study itself. National building-permit activity has swung by double digits month over month through 2026, so a market input more than a few months old should be flagged as potentially stale rather than presented as current.
It sets the technical framework as a model code. Adoption, edition and any local amendments are confirmed with the applicable municipal, provincial or territorial official — the code itself does not settle a jurisdiction-specific question on its own.
Labour scarcity is one of the more reliable drivers of construction cost escalation. With the sector's own forecasters flagging sustained hiring pressure, a feasibility study that treats hard costs as a flat markup over a past comparable, without considering the labour market for the specific trades needed, is missing a predictive input.
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